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Chapter 5 - Adirondacks

Essex Inn, Essex, NY

                 

All sites in this chapter:
: Fort Ticonderoga, Ticonderoga
: Lighthouse/Champlain Memorial, Crown Point
: Essex Inn, Essex
: Camp Santanoni, Newcomb
: John Brown Farm, North Elba
: Camp Sagamore, Racquet Lake
 

T he entire village of Essex, with its carefully preserved 19th-century structures of wood, brick, and stone, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It possesses one of the best collections of Federal and Greek Revival architecture in the state. The village, located on the shore of Lake Champlain, was founded in 1765 and produced the wealth to build all of its fine buildings primarily from stone quarries, shipping, and shipyards. One significant Federal style building that is open to the public is the Essex Inn, built in 1810 and situated in the center of the small village. It is a two-story, wood-frame structure with a colonnaded porch on both the first and second floors across the entire long width of the façade. The columns, painted white like the remaining wood trim on the building, are slender, Doric in style, and tall, being two stories high. Despite its impressive length on Main Street, the inn is surprisingly narrow in depth, just one room and hallway deep.